Is your trust in science based on faith or based on science?

What I mean is this: how much do you actually know about the science most atheists parrot? Most atheists know as little science as most Christians know as little theology. Just as a Christian trusts his priest to tell him what he believes, an atheist trusts scientists with a Ph.D. tacked to their name to tell them what they believe. But how many times have the scientists turned out to be wrong? I only ask this because it seems this is central to the problem that most atheists have. They are repulsed by the phrase “believe” – they are addicted instead to the phrase “know”. But honestly, do you really know, or are you just believing what you’re told? I would like to remind you that in the 1970′s the scientists of the day were seriously concerned that we were about to enter an ice age, and less than 30 years later they are now convinced Earth is about to turn into a desert.

Unless you’ve observed something yourself, or observed and interpreted the evidence yourself and drew your own conclusions, you are just as guilty as faith as any religious person.

Replies to This Discussion

@Professor Robert - I find myself anticipating your denial of every assertion made on this forum regarding religion, and in particular, Catholicism. This is what is publicly disseminated as the Apostles Creed, as translated and maintained by the Catholic Church:-

The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives the following English translation of the Apostles' Creed. In its discussion of the Creed, the Catechism maintains the traditional division into twelve articles, the numbering of which is here added to the text.

1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. 2. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. 3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. 4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. 5. He descended into Hell. On the third day he rose again. 6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. 7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. 8. I believe in the Holy Spirit, 9. the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, 10. the forgiveness of sins, 11. the resurrection of the body, 12. and life everlasting. Amen.

Let's just pick one. Number 3. According to this, your faith directs you to believe in a virgin birth. How did anyone know Mary was a virgin? When was it made public? Who would have believed her then? You'd imagine there would need to have been an inspection. But no - apparently nobody batted an eyelid.

As for the others, I'm sure there are some nice vague and possibly even condescending rebuttals as to how this is symbolic, and that allegorical, and of course none of it is what religion is, after all.

Einstein was alleged to have said, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.". Do you understand your religion well enough to explain it simply, Professor Robert?

Well dude, it is impossible for a human being to know everything about science. It does not contain all of its information in a single book. You cant fully know everything about a theory let alone the science itself.

Of course there are some certain things we have to know about like its methodology. What makes scientific information better than all others? What is scientific methodology and etc.

I can fully understand evolution, draw conclusions about it yet, when it comes to General Relativity i partly understand it. When it comes to quantum i barely have knowledge.

So what makes me think these theories are true? As you said science can say different things over different times. It does not have strict doctrines like religions. Our analysis methods or observation tools, or approach might be insufficient or wrong, and some part of these theories can change over time. Ergo, science gives us the best possible explanation always, and will always get better, not worse. And its explanations does not include personal views, it sees the things as they are, not the way it hopes to be. If a scientist violate its methods, another one will be eager to disprove it. That what makes science trustworthy.

And your priest argument is so irrelevant and sorry to say that but stupid. I am not talking about so-called scientists, a real scientist writes article, shares datas that come from researches and observations. And all the other scientists, as well as you are (if you are capable of such thing) can test his claims and disprove. You do not have that chance in a priest. If you dont believe a priest's word he would tell you to go to hell.

With science you are not just 'believing' something that someone with a PhD has told you. That is the thing about science it is always under peer review and is constantly being tested to 'prove' theories are still accurate even as new information becomes available or new technologies are discovered.

In science knowledge improves incrementally with any subject, research and tests are carried out to prove any theory is accurate and obeys all laws. The tests have to be reproducible and provide the same results every time they are carried out. The research is published in peer review journals and is examined by brilliant minds with proven track records in carrying out such peer reviews.

Religion has the holy (story) book of whatever the religion is and no one is allowed to question or peer review it for accuracy and reproduce the claims made. For obvious reasons: it would be like peer reviewing Harry Potter.

If science did not operate in this manner, we would not have any of the medical breakthroughs that have been made in the last 150 years and you would still be nipping down to the barber shop for a haircut and surgery or blood letting to remove 'bad airs'. Not to mention computers, televisions, radio, mobile telephones, electricity, cars, air travel, etc, etc, ad infinitum

They ALWAYS seem to think of "theory" as meaning something like "aproposedexplanationwhosestatusisstillconjecturalandsubjecttoexperimentation,incontrasttowell-established propositionsthatareregardedasreportingmattersofactual fact."

Science sometimes uses that meaning, but it also uses the word in a totally different sense: "acoherentgroupoftestedgeneralpropositions,commonly regardedascorrect,thatcanbeusedasprinciplesof explanationandpredictionforaclassofphenomena:Einstein's theoryofrelativity." (source for both definitions)

The theory of relativity is about as proven as anything can be. It's WAY beyond being just a conjecture. Not only that, but as a theory in the second sense, it has opened up whole new vistas of study.

^Not this theist. After studying languages such as Greek and Hebrew, and understanding something like context with the scope of English Literature. It is clear that one word can have multiple meanings depending on the context in which it is used.

This is a terrible example, but it gets the point across and was a successful argument in the court system: The Bill Clinton Defense: "That all depends on what your definition of what 'is' is." I enjoy word games!